Depacote Disaster
Location: Nashville, Tennessee Date: November 15, 1994 Story On the night of November 15, 1994 in Nashville, Tennessee, George Hanes was already at work. His wife, Lynn, was getting ready to work the nightshift leaving their three young children, six-year-old Sean, three-year-old Marlynn, and two-year-old Travis, under the supervision of her teenage stepdaughter, 15-year-old Diane. "Diane is a great child. She's responsible and mature. She's had seizures. So the doctors have put her on depacote. If you don't take it at this certain time, it doesn't work. It's like not taking them at all. So her father bought her an alarm box that tells you it is time to take your medicine," remembers Lynn. At 9:30pm, Lynn heard an alarm being reset and knew that it wasn't Diane. She panicked and saw Marlynn and Travis with handfuls of pills. She woke up Diane and asked her to clean up her pills. "When I got woken up there was this terror going through my head. Marlynn had my medicine. Some of them were in the pill box and some of them were in her hand," said Diane. Marlynn looked at Lynn so funny. Her eyes were big. Lynn sat her down and looked in her mouth with a flashlight to see if she had taken any of the pills. "The pills were pink. So I figured that if she took some, they would have faded on her tongue. There was nothing. I felt relieved at that point. She gave me a kiss goodnight and said, 'I love you Mom,'" said Lynn. At around 4:30am, Sean woke up and heard Marlynn making funny noises. He told her to wake up but she didn't respond. He then woke up Diane and told her that Marlynn was breathing funny. "Usually, when I touch her the first time, she wakes up and then, when she didn't wake up it just scared me to death," said Diane. She picked her up, set her down in the living room, and called 911. "I felt so guilty because it was my medicine she took. And I felt that I could have put it in a hard place where she couldn't reach it," said Diane. Within six minutes, Nashville Fire Department units arrived including paramedic Charlie Mock. Lynn rushed home as soon as she was notified and told them that Marlynn might have taken depacote. "We were very concerned for the child because we didn't know how much of the medication she had taken or how much it would have absorbed. The damage to her organs might have progressed. All we knew was that her central nervous system was depressed and that we needed to get to the hospital rapidly," said Charlie. At Donaldson Hospital, Marlynn was examined by emergency physician Jenna Sanford. "She began having major seizures. She's probably the most sickest child I've ever taken care of," said Dr. Sanford. It was very difficult for her to talk to the parents. "I served in the Vietnam War and saw some terrible things, but I don't think I've ever been frightened anymore than I was then," said George. "She couldn't breathe on her own. It scared me. All I could see was her head and this tube with a balloon on it to get her to breathe," said Lynn. Marlynn was then transferred to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital under the care of Dr. Jeremy Gerard. "Her blood was found to have more than ten times the amount of depacote that would often be used to control seizures. We very concerned that she could have delayed defects and might never survive," said Dr. Gerard. Lynn and George didn't want her to die and were allowed to see her. "I knew that she was fighting for her life. I probably afraid more that night than I had ever in the last 20 years, I guess," said George. Dr. Gerard gave Marlynn a drug to try to help her poison system carry oxygen better and waited to see what would happen. "Her depacote level dropped dramatically throughout that day," said Lynn. The next morning, she woke up and smiled and whispered, "Hi, Daddy." "It is just a wonderful feeling to have her back the way she was," said Lynn. Two months have passed since the incident. "When Marlynn came back home I just grabbed ahold of her and thanked God she's okay," said Diane. Dr. Sanford thinks that it is very important that parents keep the pills in an original childproof container and then keep them on a high locked shelf out of the reach of their children to prevent them from sampling some of the pills that they may very well think are candy. "When I look at Marlynn now I see a lifetime with her and I'm so grateful to everyone," said Lynn. Category:1994 Category:Tennessee Category:Poisonings Category:Seizures